Lombard Street

Listen first. Tyres hum softly on red brick as a car creeps down the slope. It moves at walking pace, brake lights glowing at every turn. Around you, flowers spill over the edges of the planted beds. Somewhere behind you, a cable car bell clangs on Hyde Street. You are standing at the top of one of the strangest blocks in any American city, a short stretch of road that folds back on itself, again and again, down the face of Russian Hill.

This is Lombard Street. More precisely, this is a single famous block of it. Lombard Street itself runs a long way across San Francisco, from the edge of the Presidio in the west toward the waterfront in the east. For most of that distance it is an ordinary, busy road. Only here, between Hyde Street at the top and Leavenworth Street at the bottom, does it twist into the shape that brings visitors from all over the world.

Why does a street bend like this? The answer is the hill under your feet. The natural slope of this block is very steep, roughly a twenty-seven percent grade. That is too steep for most cars to drive safely in a straight line, and early automobiles struggled even more. In the 1920s, the city reshaped the block into a series of sharp switchbacks. The curves spread the drop over a much longer path, so each stretch of road is gentler than the hill itself.

Count the turns as you look down. There are eight hairpin bends, each one tight enough that drivers must steer hard and slow down. The road is one-way, running downhill only, from Hyde toward Leavenworth. The speed limit here is just five miles an hour. Watch the cars for a minute, and you will see that almost nobody needs a sign to tell them. The shape of the street forces patience on everyone.

Now look at the surface. The roadway is paved in red brick rather than smooth asphalt. Brick gives tyres more grip on a steep, curving road, and it also slows traffic down. It adds a warm colour that changes with the light. On a grey, foggy morning the bricks look dark and damp, almost maroon. In afternoon sun they turn a brighter, rusty red, and the pattern of the lines becomes easier to see from above.

Here is something many visitors miss. The famous curves are not only a road. They are also a garden. Between each bend, the city and the residents keep planted beds, and in late spring and summer the hydrangeas here can be thick with blue, pink and purple blooms. Trimmed hedges line the edges like green walls. The flowers are a big part of why the block photographs so well, and they are looked after with real care.

And look at the houses. Unlike a park or a monument, this block is a residential street. The homes on either side are private, many of them grand, with bay windows and small terraces that face straight onto the curves. People live here, cook dinner here, and take out the rubbish here, while thousands of strangers walk past with cameras. That tension, between a quiet neighbourhood and a global attraction, has shaped the street's story in recent decades.

The crowds have grown so large that traffic can back up for several blocks on busy days. Residents have long complained about noise, blocked driveways and litter. Over the years the city has discussed ways to manage the flow, including ideas like a reservation system for cars. These debates continue to come and go. As you walk, keep that in mind. A soft voice and a little space for the people who live here go a long way.

A second surprise: Lombard Street is often called the crookedest street in the world, but that title is open to argument. Across town, in the Potrero Hill neighbourhood, a block of Vermont Street also winds down a steep slope, and many locals insist it is actually more crooked. It is less decorated and far less visited. Lombard won the reputation, though, thanks to its flowers, its brick, its views and its central location.

Those views matter. Turn and look east from the upper part of the block. On a clear day, you can see across the rooftops of North Beach toward Telegraph Hill, with Coit Tower standing on top, a pale column built in the 1930s. Beyond it lies the water of San Francisco Bay. The curving road in the foreground and the tower in the distance make one of the classic frames of this city.

The street has also had a long life on screen. Film and television crews have used San Francisco's hills for decades, and Lombard appears in many chase scenes and travel shows. Alfred Hitchcock's thriller Vertigo, from 1958, placed the home of its main character on Lombard Street, though not on this crooked block. The name itself is usually traced to Lombard Street in London, a historic road in that city's financial district.

If you want to walk the curves, use the staircases. Pedestrian steps run down both sides of the block, separate from the road. Please do not walk in the roadway itself, as drivers are busy with the turns. The steps are steep, so take your time and hold the rail if you need it. Halfway down, pause and look back up. The view from the middle shows how tightly the bends stack above you.

At the bottom, on Leavenworth Street, many people turn around for one last look. From here the block rises like a green and red ribbon against the sky. Notice how quickly the noise changes. Just a few steps away, the city returns to its normal rhythm of buses, delivery vans and dog walkers. Take a moment before you go. Listen again for the soft hum of tyres on brick, the bell of a cable car up the hill, and the small sound of a street that bends so a city can climb.